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"Ever wonder if City Council is as contentious and chaotic as it is sometimes portrayed? Here you can get a progressive perspective on some of the issues from someone who spent four years in the trenches. Totally unbiased, though!Feel free to comment but keep it respectful, just like they do at council."

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Spreading rumours

As
a result of a recent run-in with our excellent health care system, I
have been unable to attend meetings at city hall for a couple of
weeks. Fortunately, the meeting agendas are all online and those who
are able to attend have access to iPads, notebooks and smart phones
that allow them to tweet and post their observations as council
debates the issues of the day.

Livestreaming
is even better. From the comfort of my recliner, thanks to Rogers TV,
I was able to watch our councillors meeting with the Ontario
ombudsman on Monday and again last night for the full council
meeting. It's not as good as being there; you miss some of the
interplay among participants and the gallery response, but it's the
next best thing.

Too
bad we can't have this for committee meetings as well. Council has
talked about this for years but it has been slow going. It makes one
wonder about political will.

It's
all the more important because meeting minutes reflect only motions
passed (or failed) and capture none of the debate. Votes are recorded
only for council meetings; since committee recommendations are just
that, recommendations and not decisions, only the outcome is noted
and not the proponents.

That
makes for a rather incomplete picture of council doings. And with all
due respect to the clerk's office, it makes for pretty dry reading;
not something that is likely to be a page turner.

The
ombudsman, Andre Marin, himself noted that in his recommendations.
He suggested all meetings of council, including closed meetings,
should be taped. And, when Councillor Stephen Orser complained about
some deprecatory statements in the ombudsman's report, Marin pointed
out that he was trying to make the report more accessible by
providing illustrations, liven things up a bit.

Orser
ought to understand that. He likes to take the dramatic approach.
Think Nazi posters and chickens in diapers courtesy of Orser.

Things
certainly did get livened up a bit toward the end of Tuesday's
council meeting. And, as usual, Orser was the one to liven it up,
this time by bringing forward an emergent motion.

Emergent
motions are used to deal with issues that need to be dealt with
quickly, that can't wait to go through the normal procedures. Time is
of the essence and the matter is important.

So
what was the emergency?

According
to the motion from Orser, seconded by Councillor Dale Henderson, it
was the future of the the McCormick Property at 1156 Dundas St.

That
property has been standing vacant since 2007, when Beta Brands pulled
out and left the workers stranded and the property taxes unpaid.
Those taxes currently stand at well in excess of half a million
dollars and mounting. An attempt to cut losses via a tax sale was
unsuccessful; nobody wants to assume responsibility for a piece of
land not knowing what's in the ground. Dealing with the removal of
contaminated soil can be expensive.

The
city has a policy for dealing with situations like this. You do an
Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) to see what you have. If phase 1
of the ESA doesn't reassure you that the site is clean, you go to a
phase 2. That's more expensive; it involves drilling bore holes in a
lot of places to see what's there. Even then, you may have a few
surprises when you try to excavate the whole site, as we learned when
redeveloping some property along York Street for a soccer field.

The
fact that no one was willing to buy the property for back taxes
should give one pause.

But
not Stephen Orser. The property is in his ward and he wants something
done with it. Now.

This
is what he wanted council to endorse:

That
the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to expedite the Council approved
procedures to be followed
after a failed tax sale as it relates to the McCormick property known
as 1156 Dundas Street
and to communicate the urgency of this project to the consultants undertaking any work on
behalf of the City of London with respect to this property.

Hurry,
hurry, hurry.

I
remembered that a few weeks earlier, Orser had contacted the local
media that he had a potential investor in hand, a developer from
Toronto who wanted to put up a senior's complex using a new building
technology. Orser had said he would be “a bull in a china shop”
to move this forward, and indeed he was.

But
still, there is this pesky thing called a policy. You have to do the
ESA's before you vest the property. And the ESA's and the remediation
that the results demand can get very costly. You want to know what
you are getting into. Even the most exciting redevelopment plans are
subject to cost constraints.

But
Orser had led the developer's agent to believe he could move things
along quickly and he wanted to deliver. So that was the urgency.

Some
on council weren't convinced that this is what emergent motions
procedures were designed for. After all, staff had developed an area
plan, the tax sale approach had been tried, an ESA was underway.
Things were moving forward according to policy. Just what was the
emergency?

Orser
explained that he had talked to staff and suggested that it was staff
who had told him to bring this motion to council although, in the
staff comments that followed, that didn't seem to be the case.

One
problem that Orser encountered was that he failed initially to ask
for leave to put this motion on the floor, so the merits of the
motion were being debated before the question was on the floor.
Councillors Paul Hubert and Harold Usher both had questions. Hubert
didn't see the need and Usher wondered why and how this was coming
forward. The latter voted against allowing the question to be put on
the floor, an unusual but not unknown response to a request for
leave.

Nevertheless,
leave was granted; as the first speaker Usher wanted to know if staff
had been consulted or was this just a matter of developers with a
couple of billion dollars negotiating with a councillor.

At
this, there was an outburst from Orser across the room. This was not
fair; he wanted an apology from “Harold” right now, he wasn't
taking this. Usher was implying something here, and “he hasn't even
read the tax policy,” Orser yelled. There was supportive laughter
from Councillors Henderson and White.

The
mayor interjected that it was unfair of Usher to suggest that this
was driven by anything other than the ward councillor's interest in
something he had been carrying on about “for God knows how long.”
He didn't call Orser to account for his outburst. He asked staff to
respond to Usher's questions.

Mr.
Zuidema, the new city manager, was circumspect. This was his first
council meeting and he seemed to be exercising caution. The first
phase of the ESA was underway; they really didn't want to commit to
anything before they got the results. City engineer John Braam
concurred. It would probably be done mid to late September and, with
a property this longstanding, they would likely have to go to phase
2. But first there would be a report back to council. Neither
mentioned whether they had been contacted by a developer or the
councillor. It was probably a good choice.

Fontana
was satisfied that there was nothing in the motion that suggested
that they wouldn't be following the policy. He called the next
speakers on the list, Councillors Joni Baechler and Nancy Branscombe.
Neither of them saw the necessity of a motion, emergent or otherwise,
that called for following policy. Baechler moved to refer this until
the report came forward. Branscombe concurred. Everyone would like to
see the property redeveloped but she didn't want to be stepping on
any landmines along the way.

The
mayor asked for staff's understanding of the motion. Was this normal
process?

Braam
declined to offer an opinion. He wasn't sufficiently conversant with
tax policies to comment.

Then
Orser took the floor. He was less overwrought than before. “I know
I've been a little excited,” he conceded. “But Harold’s
implying... that is just from outer space.” Harold, he continued, was
implying that he (Orser) was getting a half million dollar bribe,
that was how he read it, and “he won't apologize,” he
said. “It's not fair, it's just not fair,” he complained.

I
must say I was shocked. Where had that come from? Yes, he and Usher
don't seem to get along well, and consistently calling the
councillor by his first name is more a manifestation of disdain than
respect. It wasn't the first time that the two had sparred.

Certainly,
in my listening to the debate and in the subsequent replaying of the
podcast, I couldn't discern any such allegations from Usher.

But
Orser seemed to hear them.

He
went on to say that someone wanted to put a factory there, someone
else a senior's building, but he couldn't act as their agent. He
wanted council to “release the staff” to move forward. It had to
be done now.

And
he got his way. In the votes that followed, Baechler's motion to
refer lost on a tied vote, with Polhill, Swan, Orser, VanMeerbergen,
Henderson, White and Fontana opposed. They were joined by Paul Hubert
in the final motion supporting Orser's motion.

The
whole episode raises some serious questions. Why did Orser bring
forward an emergent motion that did not deal with an emergency? Why
did the mayor chastise Usher and not rebuke Orser? Why did Orser
think he was being accused of taking a bribe?

I
served with Orser on council for four years. He was always somewhat
volatile. His start on council was marred by an arrest and charge of
assault which was withdrawn after problems with police testimony intervened.
Later, there was a grease fire at his home when he fell asleep. He
freely discussed personal domestic situations with other councillors
and even constituents who barely knew him. He made indiscreet
postings online and blamed female friends.

His
votes were erratic. After being a strong supporter of not allowing
bottled water to be sold at city venues, he did a sudden about face
in his second term, saying he had met with the industry and he now
saw it differently. He fought hard to get on planning committee and
then complained bitterly about how long and boring the meetings were;
much of his time was spent in the hallway on the phone. As we neared
the 2010 election, he missed more and more time from meetings,
although he was frequently in the hall fraternizing with the
development applicants and ushering them into the committee venue.
When I would ask him why he had missed a meeting, he would say that
his re-election took precedence, he had a lot of signs to put up.

A
few months ago, when I ran into him at city hall, he asked me if I
had heard that someone had given him a car, an expensive kind of car.

I'm
not a car enthusiast. I drive a 2000 Honda Civic because it is
reliable although it needs a little work, like a new heating/cooling
fan. So I paid scant attention to what kind of car this was, or who
allegedly had given it to him. But he wanted me to know that he had
bought it; he had gotten a really good deal. But rumours were going
around that it was some kind of inappropriate gift, he said.

Why
would I hear anything like that? And why would he want to spread
rumours about himself?

He
certainly seemed to have regrets the morning after the council
meeting. In response to Andy Oudman about Phil McLeod's report on the
meeting, he had little to say but had a warning that “these
bloggers” will be held to account.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

If Stephen wants respect he should start calling Harold "Councillor Usher" at Council meetings. Fontana started it when he started attending committee meetings, and Stephen seems to have just copied his big brother. perhaps the two of them will go into "business" together.